The recent death of Dana Reeve has focused attention on a disturbing trend: young nonsmoking women dying of lung cancer.The Indy Channel reported March 7 that Indiana University School of Medicine oncologist Larry Einhorn said that such cases were almost nonexistent 30 years ago, but more common today. He said that secondhand smoke may be a factor.

“The same amount of tobacco exposure is more likely to lead to the changes that cause lung cancer in a woman than the male counterpart who gets the same secondhand exposure. Now, why that is, no one knows,” Einhorn said. “It’s sometimes too easy to say that this could be due to secondhand smoke. Probably some of the cases are due to secondhand smoke, but I would guess that the majority of them are unknown as to why these young healthy women like Dana Reeve develop this terrible disease and then succumb to lung cancer.”

About 15,000 nonsmoking women die of lung cancer annually. Reeve, 44, the widow of actor Christopher Reeve, died earlier this week.

CBS-2 in Chicago noted that lung cancer among female smokers also is on the rise. “More women die annually from lung cancer than breast and ovarian cancer combined,” said Dr. Jyoti Patel of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Cancer experts say that genetics or hormones may also play a role in female susceptibility to the disease.